“... Lorenzo, have said that she was good-looking, ‘de muy buen parecer’, just not the grand lady of Quixote’s fantasies. The false Dulcinea not only brings the knight back to earth, she rubs his nose in it – or rather her nose, since she is said to be snub-nosed and round-faced, and not at all fair of feature, ‘no de muy buen rostro’. Games with ...”

“... cat: ‘The cat who lived in the palace had been awarded the headdress of nobility and was called Lady Myobu.’ One day, Lady Myobu wanders onto the veranda when she is meant to stay inside; her attendant, Lady Uma, encourages the dog, Okinamaro, to go after the cat. Okinamaro does as he ...”

“... he wanted to be, and always claimed to be, was the illegitimate son of the fourth Earl Rivers and Lady Macclesfield, who afterwards married a Colonel Brett and survived her putative child by many years. He insisted that she not only refused to recognise him as her natural son but pursued him with implacable hatred and malice, even attempting to ensure that he ...”

“... When, in The Importance of Being Earnest, Lady Bracknell imagined the terrible spectre of social revolution, she spoke feelingly of ‘acts of violence in Grosvenor Square’. In this, as in her later strictures against ‘the Brighton line’, she demonstrated a sound understanding of the social geography of late 19th-century London ...”

“... play on the green,* The Hawthorn Goddess is set in the 18th century, this time in a village called Lady Well, a small community of weavers tucked away on the Yorkshire moors. ‘ “Go fuck your sheep!” the virgin yelled and set off running again.’ Thus Anne Wylde, ‘the ’Awthorn Maiden’, in spirited defiance of Amos Culpin, Jabez Stott, Joshua Binns ...”

“... almost as much as they differed from us. Her harrowing account of the protracted end of Ada Lady Lovelace suggests how the same model of a good death that provided inspiration and comfort might also serve as an instrument of torture. Though Byron’s daughter was herself a freethinker, the devout Lady Byron insisted ...”

“... listening to music on the gramophone. Waving their assault rifles, they screamed at Sir Alfred and Lady Clementine Beit to lie face down on the floor. The leader, who spoke with a strong French accent, instructed her accomplices to start with the Goya above the mantelpiece, a portrait of a beautiful young actress looking out from beneath slightly worried ...”

“... handle boxes of feminist writing and not to find the exercise exciting. He is to be companion to a lady among Leavisites and read to her my book of Larkin poems; old Oxford toad is staid enough but, even he, there is a risk, if seen through high windows, might be a bit shocking to some new blue-stocking. He should be skilled, this eunuch chap, in making tea ...”

“... take a few to -ectomise it from the lexicon – and what brave soul’d report that it had gone? (Lady: ‘I was pleased to note the lack of filthy words in your most admirable work.’ Dr Johnson: ‘Yes, indeed Madame; I’m pleased you took the time to hunt for them.’) More likely, surely, that they would have missed that selfish little organ off the ...”

“... with daisychain and lilac, and such depth in the pictures, I would find The Snow Queen, or the Lady of the Lake so readily, I thought they must be ...”

“... has a vast knowledge of her subject (inaccurate only in a few petty details, as when she refers to Lady Trevelyan as Lady Pauline Trevelyan or supposes baronets to be peers), and combines the handling of multiplied particulars with the ability to generalise effectively; this Macleod has written an important and original ...”

“... Knightley relates, the German authorities weren’t immune from spy hysteria: before the war, a lady’s maid was strip-searched crossing the border, and the female police officer excitedly reported that the maid had ‘secret writing’ on her bottom. An arrest was made, the writing photographed and the prints sent to military intelligence. It turned out ...”

“... make into a movie. The Woman and the Ape, however, is simply a disaster. Imagine the situation in Lady Chatterley’s Lover: the husband frigid, the wife discontented, the boyfriend an outsider, but sensitive and virile. With, however, this difference: the Mellors character is an ape. Not like an ape, mind you; an ape sans phrase. Surely, you will say, this ...”

“... The house in which I was billeted was the house of a well-to-do man, but the only occupant was the lady of the house, and she was advanced in years. Her three sons had gone to the war. One had been killed, another had been wounded and was in hospital, and the third was at that time in the trenches. There are miles of difference between the women of India and ...”

“... was the Chief Commissioner of the Girl Guides. The only drawback was that Andrew was a womaniser. Lady Caroline Percy, one of his other girlfriends at this time, says that ‘Andrew behaved abominably’, but Camilla was ‘desperate to marry him’. In 1970 Andrew took up with the 19-year-old Princess Anne: Tyrrel borrows from another royal ...”